#trees of distinction

[panoramicireland]

Swans in Dublin's Grand Canal at Portobello. The area is undergoing a redevelopment with the building of a hotel on the site of the buildings behind the tree here.

Swans are not always on this stretch of water, but are more often than not.

[grwvy-rwby]

The Blacksmith is not the Tree

A lot of people seem to have heard this:

Ruby: “Are you the Tree?”

Blacksmith: “You could say that, but that is a simplistic understanding of the Tree and what it does.” (Ep9)

And decided that yup, she’s the Tree. Simple answer accepted. Which is boring. And contradictory to what the show actually says. ‘But wait!’ you might say. ‘She helps Afterans Ascend. That’s what the Tree does! She even has a tree root growing up her back!’ These things are true, but I don’t think either of these things makes the Blacksmith and the Tree the same.  

For one, the Blacksmith consistently refers to the Tree as separate to herself,  as seen in the quote above. It’s not ‘I’, it’s not ‘we’, she doesn’t go back and forth between saying ‘I’ and ‘the Tree’. She always refers to the Tree as separate,. As in: “These brothers were the Tree’s earliest blossoms. […] The Tree did not foresee what they would become.” (Ep10)

Secondly, the Curious Cat also helps Afterans Ascend, by sending them to the Tree. It’s very clear that the Cat is not the Tree. The Curious Cat sends Afterans to the Tree, the Blacksmith helps them decide who (or what) they want to be, and then someone Ascends. The Blacksmith's close role with the Tree may be symbolized by her root spine, but that's only a part of her. The Blacksmith isn't the Tree any more than the Cat is. To bring it back to original quote, the Blacksmith is of the Tree the same way all Afterans are of the Tree. She came from and will return to the Tree, but it would be overly simplistic to call her the Tree.

However, I do think there’s a little more to her. There’s one character from the book that we never seemingly meet, and that’s the Lively Carpenter. 

Weiss: “Of all the characters in the book, why did it have to be the Cat? Why couldn’t we have gotten help from the Lively Carpenter? Or the Rusted Knight?” (Ep4) 

Like the Red King Ascended after meeting Alyx, I think so too did the Lively Carpenter. The Blacksmith says about RWBY+J, “The five of you have had a greater impact than you know. Just like Alyx and Lewis did before you, just like others will after you. One small kindness, in one small moment, led to such a marvelous transformation" (Ep10). Overtly, this is about Little becoming Somewhat. We can see the positive change that Ruby has had on them by their more complicated identity (being somewhat of a lot of things) and the cape they wear that is so obviously inspired by Ruby. 

But the Blacksmith says this about Alyx and Lewis as well. While Alyx's broken promise did lead to the Cat's broken heart, the way the Blacksmith worded it implies that their impact lead to a "marvelous transformation" as well. In this case, I think it was Alyx’s small kindness, her wish to help Jaune even after she had died (left behind in her knife), that resulted in the Lively Carpenter's Ascension into the Blacksmith (also the emphasis on weaponry, not just when talking to Ruby, but in her workshop as well). The Blacksmith took up Alyx's wish to "fix everything [Alyx] had broken in the Ever After, including poor Jaune" (CC Ep9). She is the one to hold onto Alyx's knife (her wish) and give it to Jaune.

(As an aside, the Blacksmith may have expanded her role to help others in the Ever After as well, as it's stated Alyx wanted to do. Arguably, the Blacksmith's role in Ascension isn't strictly needed, but it is helpful. It could be that this wasn't the role of the Lively Carpenter (or perhaps the Lively Carpenter just didn't offer guidance like the Blacksmith does) and she didn't take on this role until post-Alyx. That could be why the Red King had such a regressive Ascension, although she can't force people to make good decisions so that's not proof. It's not important to proving my point. I just think it's a neat idea and brings Alyx's impact (helping Afterans through Ascension) to be more on par with Ruby's (multi-faceted identities over singular purpose) in terms of having "a greater impact." Anyways).

Notably, the Blacksmith is still associated with woodworking, like we would expect the Lively Carpenter to be , as we see her carving wooden figurines.

Like Somewhat wears a cape like Ruby, the Blacksmith is literally wearing a copy of Alyx’s blue bandana, just in a different way (honestly the wires that make up part of her hair may be inspired by the stripes on Alyx's dress).

Perhaps, like the Paper Pleasers wanted to be more resilient and became the Genial Gems, the Lively Carpenter wanted to use more resilient material when helping Afterans and became the Blacksmith. 

Tldr: The Blacksmith Ascended from the Lively Carpenter (inspired by Alyx), isn’t the Tree, and didn’t create the Brother Gods. So please, stop calling her their mom.

[bonefall]

If you’ve already answered this then no worries, but what would the typical clan cat lifespan be then (assuming they don’t die prematurely from injury/illness). Just curious as to how many generations have passed since the clan’s founding in the 80 or so years.

Clan cat lifespans can be pretty variable! They're considered senior warriors at 5, but if all works out their lifespan is often 16 years. Kittens usually enter the picture for a parent who is 2 to 8 years old, but they COULD have them anywhere between 1 to 15.

Clan cats play less attention to raw age than to EXPERIENCE, though. It is socially discouraged for a fresh warrior to become a parent, and you are NOT an adult until you're out of apprenticeship. They see age like this;

Child: Less than 6 full moons SEEN. If a kitten's eyes were not opened when the first moon of their life passed over them, that is not a month they were alive.

Adolescent: The amount of time you are an apprentice. Flamepaw was considered a child while his sister was an adult.

Young Adult: The first full year out of apprenticeship, when you've handled a full year on your own. A warrior is only eligible for an apprentice after this length of time, so by extension a cat COULD be a mentor around age 2 (BUT that's considered young. 3 is a better bet.)

Adulthood is even more variable, because you're usually not considered "aged" until you've had an apprentice or a litter and you're around 5 years old. Without either of those things, you often won't be considered a "senior warrior" until you're as old as 8.

So to answer your question directly, you can comfortably estimate a new crop of warriors about every 5 years, and full population turnover every 15. Between the numbers, 8 is a good estimation of how long it takes for a generation to pass

(Though I'm more partial to historic events and time periods than crunching numbers like that)

Elders can hang on for a LOOONG time though-- One-eye over in ThunderClan was a personal friend of Pinestar and witnessed the Crusades before passing away at the tender age of 20-something.

[dailyhtfboards]

I love how Lippy did his boards.

Yeah, I tend to find Lippy’s boards are some of the most expressive outta the bunch! I actually got another one of Lippy’s boards lined up for tomorrow’s post, whadda coincidence :]

(From TV episode 4A Easy for you to Sleigh)

[serpentface]

Do psychotropic drugs and/or ritual play a role in any of the blightseed cultures? A pretty broad question, lol

Yeah that’s a very broad question, the answer is about as much as it tends to play roles in real history. Alcohol is pretty ubiquitous (outside of cultures that abstain from intoxicants) and used for a variety of purposes, opioids are commonly used in some parts for pain relief or recreational purposes, stimulants (usually in mild, natural forms) are used to provide extra energy, and hallucinogens are most commonly used as part of a larger religious framework (rather than for recreational purposes). Any more elaborate answer kinda has to be case by case in a certain culture or part of the setting.

I'll just take this as an opportunity to talk about the one established sect that pretty much REVOLVES around psychoactive use. This is the Scholarly Order of the Root, which is a sort of mystery religion + elite community of scholars who currently occupy the Ur-Tree and its forest in the far southern Lowlands (southeast of Imperial Wardin, on the same land mass).

The Ur-Tree is the obligatory Huge Fucking Fantasy Tree (and its surrounding forest). It’s a mass of vegetation about a mile tall and almost as old as Plant Life Itself, its upper branches are primeval plants, which become more modern the nearer they get to the ground (and each 'level' holds tiny ecosystems, some containing descendants of LONG-extinct arthropods/other small animals). Its lowest branches and the surrounding forest are contemporary plant life, and all is connected and protected by an incomparably MASSIVE fungal mycelium network (which is itself a living god).

A lot of the Scholars' more secretive practices revolve around experimentation with substance use with the goal of expanding the Mind and transcending the body to fully connect to the Dreamlands, and they have a supply chain of traders and mercenaries called Rootrunners who traffic substances into the Lowlands. Most of their psychoactive use is in a very intentional capacity and not just like, for fun, but a LOT of them are just straight up addicted to cocaine (in the form of alchemically refined bruljenum, which is used for practical purposes of its stimulant effect during long hours of work).

All known psychoactives are desirable for experimentation (particularly hallucinogens), with each having properties that either allow expansion of the Mind, transcendence of the body, or outright divine communion. Their effects are logged in great detail and interpreted to form the basis of the Scholars' understanding of the natural world and reality itself.

The most important substance is Ur-Root, which is root matter from subterranean levels of the Ur-Tree that have both their own intrinsic psychoactive substances and a very, very high concentration of living god mycelium. The tree root contains DMT and the mycelium has its own wholly unique effects (being an actual living god). They alchemically refine it into a purer, more potent form, and use it to expand beyond the body and directly commune with the Giants, a group of entities they have identified as the only true gods.

An Ur-Root trip starts off with minor visual distortion, which turns into shifting fractals that slowly obscure the vision. Eventually the senses are entirely taken over by a 'tunnel' of rapidly shifting fractals and geometries. In a complete trip, the experiencer gets a sense that they have been pushed through a membrane and entered another realm, finding themselves in a distinct experiential Space.

At this point they may encounter entities which communicate to them in a language impossible to describe but wholly understood. These beings are understood to be the Giants, or at least aspects of the Giants that mortals are capable of comprehending (they often take familiar tutelary forms of the Mantis or the Snake, or appear resembling the same type of sophont that the experiencer is, all composed of ever-shifting geometries). The experiencer often feels a sense of unconditional and endless love from these beings, though the Giants may be more hostile and may appear in the form of the Trickster (usually a cultural figure regarded as malicious, be it an animal or otherwise) in a bad trip.

(^Up until this point, this has mostly just been a DMT 'breakthrough' experience ft. 'machine elves' and the like).

They are then removed from this space and returned to something that feels like the real world, but is nearly unrecognizable. They have a sense of rapidly moving through time, and will usually see 'the spires' towards the beginning, which just so happen to look like this:

(source + some context via Implication- the spires are exactly what this art is depicting)

The experiencer continues to move across an unfathomable amount of time, occasionally 'seeing' other such flashes of unfamiliar landscapes and creatures, and yet also being devoid of all their senses, the 'seeing' is pure, unfiltered experience. There is a sense of interconnectedness with all life, and that one has become the forest (or even Life) itself. The sense of time is wildly distorted, the trip lasts only about 5 minutes but feels like an eternity and is understood as literal hundreds of millions of years.

The experiencer has usually lost any remaining sense of Self and individual consciousness during this phase (in which case this time distortion is usually a neutral or even peaceful experience), but some retain a fraction of their identity, and find themselves trapped and conscious while experiencing what feels like eternity (which can be LIFE-CHANGINGLY distressing, even after the fact).

(^This latter part of the trip is the effects of the Ur-Tree fungus).

The trip ends with a sense of rushing through the ground and back up into one's body, at which point they will abruptly return to their senses and consciousness. The details are then immediately retrieved via interview and recorded in immense detail. The whole experience is understood as having been full comprehension of the Dreamlands, communion with the Giants, and then a tour through the act of creation.

This is done as part of the initiatory practice into the inner mystery-religion of the scholars, and as needed for study by high scholar-priests. It is not taken lightly, both as it is absolute communion with the gods and reality, and in that it can be a very, very difficult experience. People who have gone through this often walk away with a permanently shifted perspective, often in a positive and/or comforting way- a sense of interconnectedness with all life, a peace with the concept of death, seeing less of a point in individual ego and the concept of Self, and comfort in the sense of divine love they (may have) experienced. This heavily influences the philosophy of the Scholars and has had effects by proxy in the religious worldviews of the region.

Details of this experience are closely guarded, and initiates are given absolutely no prior knowledge and expectations for their trip. This is seen as a necessity- their naivety will allow for a true, unfiltered experience, and can be used to gauge whether they should or should not be accepted. Those that have a distinctly bad trip upon initiation may be assumed to have been 'rejected' by the giants and thus denied full priesthood, though this largely depends on How they interpret their distressing trip- those who identify this as a test and harsh lesson in a journey to enlightenment may be accepted (as this is how fully initiated scholar-priests interpret and handle their bad trips).

This inner priesthood is only a small fraction of the Scholarly Order, and its greater function is as a hub of education and repository of knowledge, and Scholar-trained doctors can provide some of the best medical care available in the setting ('best medical care in this setting' only means so much but it's pretty solid, relatively speaking). Only a chosen few Scholars ever get to commune with the Ur-Root, and most of the divine secrets revealed in the process are kept hidden (though they indirectly influence the politics and worldview of the entire order).

[crow-quet]

been seeing these little design challenges on twitter re: warrior cats so i decided to try my hand at it with the tigerclones !!! :3

[fight-nights-at-freddys]

i think its funny that antis can't comprehend the fact that my therapist is okay with me shipping problematic things and that she also dislikes antis.

[mauvity]

Trees in my art compilation

(Not all of these are posted online so lmk if u want to see the full thing lmao)

[maculategiraffe]

the same roofers are here today and boyfriend just whispered to me "should we walk out there and go" (jovially) "'SOMEbody's got a case of the GIGGLES'"

[sysig]

Pst (Lee skin by homie, with some edits by me)

[idylls-of-the-divine-romance]

Also because i cannot properly define "heaven" and earth".

[panoramicireland]

Leafy autumn with leaf drop along the Grand Canal in Dublin.

It's one of my favourite parts of Dublin, in all a very photogenic city.

[persephonaae]

The humble manzanita with its gorgeous red twisted bark

[makoredeyes]

Hey I have no clue how these ask things work, so I figured I just shoot my shot and see what happens.

So I've been rereading a bunch of old Destiny lore recently and I can't help but be a little saddened by all the amazing story elements that were added and then completely abandoned in game.

Dregen yor and the weapons of Sorrow (Honestly just rogue light bearers in general)

The Concordant Faction (Please Bunige I want a proper enemy human faction)

All the other cool alien races like Qugu, Sindu, and Clipse (Fighting the same four enemy types over and over again starts to get a bit repetitive)

Awesome locations like Old Chicago and Mumbai Push (I want to see more of what humanities golden age looked like)

ELIKSNI Guardians!!!!! (We’ve only wanted them in game for forever now)

And there’s still plenty more but these are just the ones off the top of my head. And after reviewing all these elements it makes what we currently have in game now feel a little underwhelming.

So if you had to choose something from destiny’s old lore to bring to the for front of the game now what would you pick?

And how do you feel about all these abandoned lore elements?

Well the first thing you gotta remember about 'forgotten' lore is Bungie LOVES to play the long game. We went YEARS without any answers about Nezarec, for example. And Lords Timur and Colovance went a decade without any mention at all only to make a lore cameo in Season of the Wish only a few months ago. I admit I wonder if they will keep this up with all the turnover that the company has had with writers etc. but it has been their strong modus operandi through the entirety of the franchise to circle back on seemingly long forgotten lore and characters. In fact this has been a running model of this expansion's Episode models, tbh. Hailing back to figures like Failsafe, Maya Sundaresh and Fikrul, not to mention freaking Skolas??!? Faces of the distant past, all of them. So when people say they are saddened by things being forgotten I take another lick of salt because I don't really believe in that. Furthermore, you've sent a rather peculiar checklist to make that point.

Osteo Striga is a literal brother to Thorn via synthesis of the Necrotic Grip exotic. Not to mention I would like to think Necrochasm probably counts as a Weapon of Sorrow as well and we got an update for it in Season of the Witch just last year.

The Concordat and Lysander have made a surprise return in the Allstar Vector lore in Season of the Wish

and the Qugu have an entire incredibly meaty lorebook Dynasty that was released with The Final Shape.

We've even seen a reference back to Old Chicago and the weirdness with it in the new Ice Breaker lore. *I don't think I've heard a thing from anyone about Lightbearer Eliksni before so I'd love to see what you've got on that.

What has definitely fallen by the wayside, yes, is the concept of Rogue Lightbearers, but as our understanding of Light and the use of Darkness has expanded, the notion of 'rogue' has kind of fallen away. "Dredgen" is certainly a thing of the past, and guys like Shin Malphur have gotten to fuck off into the sunset and retire. Am I satisfied with how that story ended? Not really. Would I be shocked if he bounced back into the story someday? Not at all. Because that's how Bungie plays stuff. And there are also still characters like the Warlock Jana-14 who studied the Necrotic Grips and later absconded with Osteo Striga who is still at large and unaccounted for, presumably running amok feeding her child so yanno. (fite me I love the lore on those lololol) Things aren't all sunshine and daisies. I will say, absolutely, the newer writing has lost some of its teeth. You look at some of the older stuff and how incredibly dark it truly is, and it's breathtaking. The Man With No Name is heartbreaking. The Last Days on Kraken Mare is chilling. I think that they're softening the story a little to appeal to a wider audience maybe. But not by a whole lot. I recall some extremely poorly camouflaged rape analogies with some of Osiris' descriptions of his imprisonment with Savathun and the way he was suppressed and overtaken. Saint's reaction, when he gets ahold of her and exacts revenge is incredibly dark. It's all very carefully metered. But this is all background lore. It is largely hidden in weapons and armor and equipment tabs. The Qugu got a wholeass book which is spectacular (and while there are only three 'chapters' they are HUGE much denser than usual pages in Destiny lore books). But you gotta read it. You gotta FIND it.

I don't think they've forgotten anything, but what I would change is how they present this stuff. Destiny tells some SPECTACULAR stories....but then it goes and hides it. The main stream episodic stories are shallow compared to the oceans of lore hidden in text, and usually much milder for more palatable consumption, but the best parts players and lore enjoyers have to know where to look to find, to the point where there's external third-party resources that have been built up like Ishtar Collective (bless them) and Destiny Lore Vault. That's not great.

And I can't help but look at like what Warhammer 40K does: all those INCREDIBLY GOOD books, and now there's games, and shorts, and so many incredible facets to tell their story, and they're all spectacular.

Bungie give us real books. Take these lorebooks and running threads you've sprinkled out through years and years... GOD give me O Hated Nezarec- his lore and his creepy ass acolytes and the horrible things that happen to his victims as a horror novel. Or the Drifter's story. Or ya'll know the one I'm crying for is the Iron Lords and the Dark Age. Give the frothing fannies a five part series following Crow around. They wanna make some money, get a good writer or six and crank those puppies out call them canon and cut them loose people will eat that shit up. Heaven forbid they do an animated series like Arcane or Castlevania. Can you imagine?? The world would end people would get so excited if it was actually GOOD. But they don't need to change the story. They just need to make it easier to get to. (and yeah, that includes how they're presenting the gameplay right now but that's a whole nother kettle of worms I don't want to touch)

[totallyseiso]

Gonna reinstall warband. Vanilla bannerlord is a far better game than vanilla warband, but that sengoku mod for warband is so good and the bannerlord version doesn't have a release date yet

[neunhofferart]

Storyboard samples from Seasons 5-8 of The Croods: Family Tree! I got to board so many fun sequences on this show... it was really difficult to squeeze a reel into just 2 minutes ToT